Between the years 1971-1974, Link Wray entered into a business relationship with Polydor Records that yielded four albums – but no singles (*actually, a small handful). Link’s debut Polydor album, 1971’s Link Wray, found him embracing his Shawnee heritage at a time when popular interest in Native American culture and history was at an all-time peak, as reflected in Paul Revere’s #1 hit, “Indian Reservation (Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)” and the release of the (second) Billy Jack vigilante film.
Songs were recorded at Link’s converted chicken coop 3-track recording facility in Accokeek, Maryland, with floorboard stomping and nail can shaking used as rhythmic accompaniment (i.e., no drum kit). “God Out West,” written by drummer, Steve Verroca, is a song that taps into the “God Pop” feeling that was similarly widespread in the early 1970s:
I can see the morning sunlight
Through a foggy hazy gloom
Mountains reaching in the sky
These flowers in the desert bloom
I can see the silence in the night
I know they might need a rest
I heard a voice in the wind
He said, “Son, come out west”
Cause the Lord found me a place
Where I should be
High in the mountains
Where I can be free
